Waning Crescent
by rubertgiles
Summary: Astronomy had always been Remus's worst subject.


Astronomy had always been Remus's worst subject.

It wasn't simply that it always seemed to be scheduled on or right around the full moon, although that certainly didn't help; because the class met less frequently than most of the other classes at Hogwarts, missing one night a month could really add up over the course of a term.

But what truly unnerved him was that…

Well.

He couldn't help hating the moon, just a little bit.

It was irrational, of course, and he said little about it to his friends over their first few years at Hogwarts, even once they knew the truth about him. But it was hard to keep them from noticing how he would not try as hard on any work that necessitated prolonged examination of the moon.

And a lot of their work seemed to necessitate prolonged examination of the moon.

On one particularly clear night in his fifth year, Remus found himself with one of those assignments. It hung over him – both the moon and the assignment – calling his attention, but for the first half of class, Remus had busied himself with orienting the planets correctly on his chart, with neatening the tip of his quill, with catching whiffs of Lily Evans' soap each time the wind blew south.

That last bit, he did as subtly as possible.

It reached a point in the night when he glanced at his watch and knew that he needed to truly start in on his work, but he dawdled, fidgeting through his bag to retrieve his straight-edge, more ink, and his lunascope.

From behind him, he heard a someone clearing their throat.

The wind shifted, and he smelled Lily's soap.

So it was Lily. He heard Lily clearing her throat.

"Remus?" She spoke quietly, like she was worried she would startle the others who were hard at work around them.

Remus did not point out to her that she needn't bother—to his left, Sirius was flirting with a girl whom Remus could not recognize in the dark, and to his right, James was looking over the edge of the tower, attempting to summon individual pieces of grass from the lawn far below. He and Peter giggled together as James dropped these pieces into the hood of a student on the other side of the tower… possibly Snape, although Remus could not have said for sure.

Even so, he replied with an equally lowered voice. "Yes, Lily?"

"Did you bring your lunascope? I've only just realized that I left mine in the dormitory."

"Oh, I think I might have." Remus fussed with his things for just a second too long before pulling the lunascope out of the pile. "Just hang on to it for tonight. I don't like using this thing anyway."

These words made Lily hesitate, even as she stood poised to claim the object from Remus's outstretched hand. And even the darkness, he was distinctly aware of her scrutinizing him. "Is it really… Does it truly upset you that much just to look at it?"

Remus frowned, although he knew that she couldn't see it. "Lily…"

"Don't try to put me off," she told him sternly. "You should know me better than that by now."

Yes, he supposed he did.

"I wasn't going to deny it," Remus murmured. "But it's fine. I'm used to it by now."

She said nothing for a few moments. "So you haven't done this part of the assignment yet, either, I'm guessing."

He didn't answer.

"Let's do it together, then." She stepped closer, looking over his copy of their instructions for a moment before turning her attention to the sky. Peering through the glass, she murmured, "Waxing crescent, two days after the new moon."

"You're reading it wrong," he said automatically.

Lily looked at him as though he was mad. "What are you talking about?"

"We haven't gotten to the new moon yet."

She cocked her head to the side. "I'm pretty sure the lunascope says—"

Remus sighed and held out his hand. "Let me look. I'll tell you where you're getting it wrong."

He should have been able to tell her without even looking—they needed the lunascope at once a month. But more often than not, he copied the information about the moon from James or Peter.

Numbers flickered across the lens, reeling off countless calculations about the moon's relative location to the earth, the sun, and the other moons and planets in the solar system. But he ignored all of those and looked to the upper corner, where a stationary '2x' blinked away.

"Oh, that's right," he exclaimed. "You must be reading the 'x' as 'waxing,' but—"

Lily rested her hand on Remus's shoulder, and he fell silent immediately. He wanted to look at her, but he couldn't bring herself to move. "I know. I just… I thought that you'd be able to look at it without thinking for a few moments if you were more concerned about telling me that I was wrong."

Remus swallowed hard. He blinked up at the moon, and he had to admit…

"Sometimes it's not so bad," he said quietly, thinking, in part, about the moon above them, but also distinctly aware of Lily's hand, and of the wind blowing strands of her hair against his neck.

And then her hand was gone. "Sometimes," she agreed.

He let his hands drop to his sides, the lunascope hanging loosely from his fingers.

"Let's get the rest of those numbers down," they both said at the same time.

They did not discuss it, but Remus did not use the lunascope again that night.


End file.
